Image:Abraham lincoln by george grey barnard cincinnati 2006.jpg

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[edit] Summary

George Grey Barnard's statue of Abraham Lincoln in Cincinnati, Ohio, which has been alternately disparaged and revered for its generally awkward but thoroughly human portrayal of the former President.

The sculptor was commissioned by Charles P. Taft to create a memorial to Lincoln in Cincinnati to mark the centenary of Lincoln's birth. Barnard conducted considerable research before beginning the statue, as he was determined to challenge the numberous conventional portrayals of the President that had previously been created. Barnard wanted his work to show the people's Lincoln, depicting the man before he became President.
The statue was completed in 1916 and, after being exhibited in New York, was sent to Cincinnati where it was unveiled by William Howard Taft in March, 1917. Later, in response to a desire to commemorate the century-long peace between the United States and Britain following the Treaty of Ghent, Charles Taft agreed to pay for a replica of Barnard's Lincoln to stand outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
However, Barnard's depiction of Lincoln - "the lugubrious expression, the stooped shoulders, the shabby clothes, the gigantic hands and feet" - was condemned as "grotesque and defamatory." Robert Lincoln, the President's son, joined a large group of objectors that deemed the statue unfit for display in London. Instead, it was presented to the city of Manchester where one newspaper proclaimed, "whilst London was to receive Lincoln the president, Manchester had got Lincoln the man; a statue of power and dignity, whose face had that 'something fitted to touch the spirit of the children of future generations like the great Stone face of another American imagining.'" Another paper contrasted Barnard's representation of Lincoln with those "fantastical sculptures which give us heroes in foolish postures, as they never were and never could be." [1]

Photographed 3/19/2006 by Rick Dikeman.

[edit] Licensing

GFDL

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